Fighter Pilot Quotes

“Fighter pilot is an attitude. It is cockiness. It is aggressiveness. It is self-confidence. It is a streak of rebelliousness, and it is competitiveness. But there's something else - there's a spark. There's a desire to be good. To do well; in the eyes of your peers, and in your own mind.”
― Robin Olds, Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

“Rather than flying willy-nilly into danger, we thought before we acted, acted quickly whenever we had to, yet still felt frustrated when the action passed us by and the older groups were given the more lucrative targets, or when operational reports told of aerial battles that we had missed.”
― Robin Olds, Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

“Those of us who survived those days went on to fly and fight with an appreciation of life that can be known only by those who have been in combat. Laughter was as profound as sadness. Friendships deepened. Every moment of each day felt exactly right, and the edges of time seemed tinged by light.”
― Robin Olds, Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

“Later, I thought of the permanent instructors at Muroc and felt a twinge of guilt comparing their situation to ours. Many of them had already completed a combat tour, and it must have been a tremendous letdown to be assigned to a base so far removed from anywhere just to train a bunch of green lieutenants.”
― Robin Olds, Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

“In the military, they mostly divide themselves into four major categories: There are the ‘me-firsters,’ the ‘me-tooers,’ the ‘deadwood,’ and the ‘dedicated.”
― Robin Olds, Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

“Aside from the old architecture, narrow winding roads, and driving on the left, I wondered why England looked so different from America; then I realized that the trees and fields, the buildings and barns, the small villages and narrow winding roads all fit together seamlessly, blended by time into a harmony. No one thing intruded on the other. Each fit the scene as though a natural process had ordained symmetry. Nothing jarred the eye; all was quiet beauty and neatness. There was no litter, nothing offensive to the senses. Every snug cottage had its garden, each shop a quaint window; there were no ugly signs. Even the lettering above the shop doors looked wonderfully ancient and elegant.”
― Robin Olds, Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds